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Canonical releases Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 1

Canonical, and the Ubuntu developers, have released the first alpha of Ubuntu 10.10, code named "Maverick Meerkat". This development milestone is the first of three planned alpha releases, which will be followed by a beta and a release candidate.

Maverick Meerkat Alpha 1 is based on the 2.6.34 Linux kernel and features version 2.31 of the GNOME desktop environment. A number of included packages have also been updated, such as the latest Qt 4.7 beta and version 2.30 of the Evolution mail, address book and calendar client. The Kubuntu release features the first beta for version 4.5 of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC), code-named "Cucumber".

As with all development releases, use in production environments and on mission critical systems is not advised. Users testing the release are encouraged to provide feedback and report any bugs that they encounter.

More details about the alpha, including a list of known issues, can be found in the release announcement and release notes. A list of planned features and changes for version 10.10 of Ubuntu is available on the Blueprints for Maverick page. Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 1 is available to download from the project's web site. Users currently running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on a desktop system can upgrade by pressing Alt+F2 and typing "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box.

The final version of Maverick Meerkat is expected to be released on the 10th of October, 2010. The latest stable version of Ubuntu is version 10.04, a long term support (LTS) release code named "Lucid Lynx", from April of this year.